FUKUOKA -- Winners of a Japan toilet poetry contest announced on Oct. 13 have unveiled humorous and cynical sides of people's daily business in the form of senryu -- a three-line Japanese poem ...

Is Japanese manufacturing in the toilet? Absolutely not — though it might be the first place to look to understand how the country’s firms are changing. One of the most surprising stories in corporate ...

TOKYO -- Say the words "public toilet" in most countries, and the reaction you will get is likely one of mild distaste, if not outright disgust. Less so in famously fastidious Japan, where public ...

KITA-KYUSHU, JAPAN – If there’s one thing Japan is passionate about, it’s toilets. Potties, loos, restrooms, john, powder room, however you say it, Japan has put a lot of thought into the smallest ...

Major Japanese toilet maker Toto has created a talking commode. The new Neo model has a robotic lid that moves in time with its voice, which for some reason is male. Neo features in a series of short ...

Dirt, stains, effluent, material, the load, waste, matter. These are the words my tour guides at Toto's toilet factory and research center in Kyushu used to verbally pirouette around what exactly its ...